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Happy Birthday, Amiga.

Since the announcement of the original Amiga at the Lincoln Center in New York back in 1985, thirty years have now passed. Time has flown by, and yet there are still so many enthusiasts of the platform, its hardware, its follow-ons, and its derivatives. It has lived on throughout the years despite what should have been the end in 1994 with the death of Commodore. And amidst all of the in-fighting, the scams, the noise, and the drama, there still exist thousands of us, still having fun on what we all know to be the most enjoyable computing platform alive.

This weekend will see a spectacular celebration of thirty years of the Amiga platform at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Nearly all the major players from the 1980s will be there, along with tons of classic and next-generation hardware, software, and kitsch collected over the decades. If you haven't decided to go, there's still time. It's going to be amazing. But today make sure to take a moment as the Amiga begins its thirtieth year just to pause and enjoy what you have, be it a 1200, a 4000, a SAM, a X1000, or whatever. Give it a hug. For whichever machine through which you keep the flame alive, to quote A-EON's Trevor Dickinson: 'let's keep this party going.' Here's to the next decade of Amiga computing!

Brian Deneen with the Sacramento Amiga Computer Club, the main sponsor of the annual AmiWest show, has dropped us a note today to let us know that this year's AmiWest will be held October 16th through October 18th. Marking thirty years of Amiga computing -- and the 18th AmiWest show to date -- this year's get-together will be held at the CalExpo Holiday Inn Express, 2224 Auburn Blvd., in sunny Sacramento, California. Additional details about show attendees, exhibitors, planned seminars, and more will be made available via the AmiWest blog, linked via the Source button below this news entry. IntuitionBase.com plans to be there, and we hope to see you, too, at this year's AmiWest.

This July 25th marks the 30th anniversary of the unveiling of the Amiga Computer, and a group of dedicated enthusiasts in California are organizing a spectacular celebration to mark it in style. To be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, starting July 25th, the show will include some of the great luminaries from the Amiga's past and present, including: Dale Luck, Carl Sassenrath, RJ Mical, Dave Needle, Michael Battilana, Colin Proudfoot, Trevor Dickinson, and many others. "Viva Amiga" producer Zack Weddington will be there, prototype hardware from the Hi-Toro days, and much, much more. Click on the link below to help finish the funding needed to make the show happen!

Posting on the AOS4 beta tester mailing list, Hyperion legal director Ben Hermans has confirmed that the default judgement against the company was overturned on April 2nd. "This entails that in the eyes of the law the bankruptcy never took place and Hyperion Entertainment CVBA was never in a state of bankruptcy," said Hermans. This ends weeks of speculation over the commercial fate of the developer of the Amiga operating system. The development of AOS4 never halted during this period.

According to Belgian legal site faillissementsdossier.be, Belgian courts declared Hyperion Entertainment CVBA to be bankrupt on the 27th of January. This has since been reported by amiga-news.de and has been the topic of much impassioned discussion on the Amiga forums this weekend. Hyperion legal representative Ben Hermans has stated that the matter resulted from a filing from a third-party and will be 'cleared up' shortly. In Belgium one can appeal to the court and the ruling could be reversed and expunged, which appears to be the plan. In the meanwhile AmigaOS development continues by contributors and Hyperion contractors, so from the user perspective, this doesn't mean anything. Unfortunately this surprising event has been accompanied by a dedicated FUD campaign by certain people online, so let's hope matters will be clarified in short order so as not to impact potential sales of AmigaOS licenses and AmigaOne systems.

After six major updates and nearly ninety minor updates, Hyperion today has finally shipped a new, complete release of the Amiga operating system: AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Discussed at length at this year's Amiwest show, the new release features a new, more powerful console, updated Intuition, new Workbench features -- such as live previews, a substantially reworked DOS, support for new filesystems, massively reworked and unified graphics subsystem, updated Warp3D drivers, updated datatypes, Python has been upgraded and the pthread library has been too, plus kernel updates and hundreds of bug fixes across many OS components. The new release comes on a pressed DVD complete with instruction manual and will cost only 29.95EUR. All supported platforms, including AmigaOne, SAM, Pegasos, and Commodore systems will have releases. Click on the source button below to go to the press release for more details.

Now just a few short weeks away, AmiWest 2014 planning is kicking into high gear. Already confirmed attendees include A-EON, AmigaKit, Hyperion Entertainment, and well-known Amigans such as Andy Broad, Epsilon, and Jim Drew. AmigaOS developers will be there, including Steven Solie, Tony Wyatt, Alex Carmona, and Alex Perez. And even at the IntuitionBase.com table we're pleased to welcome Michael Brantley, professional photographer and videographer, who will be demonstrating advanced image editing and digital sketching techniques on next-generation Amigas.

Of course our demonstrator system loaded with hundreds of third-party applications and games will be there; a full selection of Amiga Future magazines; and a representative to help answer any questions individuals might have about making the transition from 68K Amiga systems to next-generation machines. But you'll miss out on all of the seminars, demos, vendors, and camaraderie if you don't show! So be there October 24th through the 26th at the Cal Expo Holiday Inn Express in Sacramento, California. Head to the AmiWest site for more details on who's coming, what's planned, and details for booking accommodations. See you there!

Could there be yet another next-generation system on its way to Amiga land? According to a poster on an Italian Amiga forum the answer may be 'yes.' The new board appears to be a cost-reduced variant of the existing SAM460ex with no on-board SM502 controller, no external USB ports, no FPGA, and other components not used or well supported by the Amiga operating system removed. While the missing USB ports is a bit of surprise, since the boards have an internal USB header, that shouldn't be a big issue. Keep in mind there has been no official confirmation from ACube on this development, and the board may not yet be final as pictured. But, hey, it would be a terrific development if the price is right. Check out the post linked below for several pictures of the new board under test.

With the recent demise of amigarevolution.com, we've approached James Carroll of the eponymous JahcSoft to mirror his web site here so that it won't be lost in the electronic ether. Many of us have used or still use such tools as WookieChat, SabreMSN, or SimplePlay on our AmigaOne systems, so if you're looking for background on any of JahcSoft's tools, just click the source button below this news post.

There is no shortage of software for our next-generation Amiga machines: hundreds of native-AOS4 options freely available online and all of the thousands of software packages from the AOS3 days that still run great on our AmigaOne boxes. But there are commercial titles out there, too, built and designed for next-generation systems that sometimes slip through the cracks of awareness. So the editors at IntuitionBase are now keeping track of them. In the upper-left corner of our pages you will now see an option for an "OS4 Commercial SW" list. There you can get more info on each commercial available software title native for AOS4 and links to where you can purchase them. Have fun!

The Greek Amiga community continues to go from strength to strength and this December there will be a new show for the Greek Amiga community in Athens, AmiCamp 2013. Folks attending will be able to enjoy presentations on next-generation Amiga computing and check out exhibits including the AmigaOne X1000, the AmigaOne 500, and the very best from the classic 68K Amiga family, too. There should also be the opportunity to test your classic kit at the show, and apparently there will be quite a lot of Amiga gaming as well.

AmiCamp 2013 will be held in Athens, Greece, on December 14th and 15th. Please click the source button below for more information.

One of the somewhat overlooked aspects of last weekend in Sacramento at Amiwest 2013 was the in-depth update on AmigaOS development by team lead Steven Solie. Among the highlights of his presentation were the following:

* official confirmation of cancellation of the netbook project
* walk-through of new AmigaOS kernel, X-Kernel, which supports multiple cores
* integration of FUSE layer into OS and support for NTFS coming soon
* an update on Gallium3D progress
* announcement of Update 7 ISO coming soon
* announcement of new SDK with additional SDK update coming shortly

And lastly we've learned that AmigaOS 4.2 will ship as soon as the new Gallium3D layer is complete and stable. A tremendous amount of work has been done 'behind the scenes' to make the new kernel and 3D graphics stack progress in face of having to support new hardware platforms as well as personal health problems of key development team members. Nonetheless the light at the end of the tunnel is being seen at long last.

Click the 'source' button below for Steven's blog post which further details the Hyperion updates made this year at Amiwest.

Earlier this morning at AmiWest 2013 A-EON Technology Founder Trevor Dickinson announced a major purchase agreement with Ultra Varisys for the design and manufacture of a new family of AmigaOne computers. The investment, totaling some $1.2 million, comes after the surprisingly high demand for the AmigaOne X1000. The new systems are centered around a new motherboard design, code-named Cyrus, which should support multiple PowerPC offerings from Freescale Semiconductor, including the quad-core P3041, dual-core P5020, and quad-core P5040.

The fully 64-bit AmigaOne systems will support clock rates of 2.4GHz at the high-end and are expected to initially ship to beta testers in January 2014. General availability to the public is expected in the second half of 2014. Prospective testers can apply for entry into the beta program by emailing contact@a-eon.com -- although the team will only number around 50 individuals. Good luck!

It's amazing how quickly time flies, but we're just a couple of weeks away from Amiwest 2013, the premier Amiga get-together in North America. Representatives from A-eon Technology, Hyperion Entertainment, AmigaKit -- and IntuitionBase -- will be there, including Trevor Dickinson, Matthew Leaman, and Steven Solie. This looks to be a great show this year at a nice location in Sacramento, California. There will also be a developers' conference just prior to the show this year, focusing on AmigaOS application software development. Air fares are still available from multiple airports throughout the U.S. and Canada at reasonable prices, so there's still time to book your travel to Sacramento. We'll see you there.

It may be a little late given that AmiWest 2013 is starting in three weeks, but earlier this evening Bill Bosari posted links to videos of the various seminars presented last year at the AmiWest 2012 Programmers Conference. A big thanks to Bill Bosari, Mike Brantley, Steve Solie, Lyle Hazelwood, and Paul Sadlik for their presentations and work on the videos for those unable to make it. Just click on the 'source' button below to head over to the AmigaOS wiki page where the videos can be downloaded.